economics, politics, gold, and silver, from an anarcho-capitalist point of view

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.- Thomas Jefferson.

debt clock

Thursday, March 25, 2010

http://www.caseyresearch.com/displayCdd.php?id=379 If you skip down to the end of this publication, the article, Privatizing Gains, Socializing Losses, and Demonizing Wall Street, raises some interesting points regarding bailouts which I had not thought of before- esp. "Why are we so against bailouts that help taxpaying individuals, when the current system bails out non-productive indivuals on a daily basis." I don't like any bailouts (e.g.welfare), and certainly any tax-payer dollars going toward wall street bonuses. If you are against bailouts, you should read this short article.

Old friend Spencer Rogers sent me the following article, Health bill included big Republican idea: individual mandate- http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/03/24/1545524/individual-health-insurance-mandate.html. I've been meaning to write specifically about the individual mandate, and now is as good a time as any. While the concept may have started as a "republican" or "conservative" idea, it is now intellectually lazy or dishonest to characterize it as such. "Big Drug company" or "Big insurance company" friendly would be much more appropriate. The Dem's (esp head cheerleader Obama) have at the end of this HCR fight, painted this as a fight for the little guy against big business, drawing on a clearly Populist theme. This certainly has some traction, especially among their dwindling political base. In fact, the individual mandate makes this bill very friendly for both Big Pharma and Big Insurance. "What, what, WHAT?" some of you may be asking?

This provision adds millions of previously uninsured people to the positive side of the ledger for these large companies, w their new subsidized, mandated, drug consumption and insurance premium purchases. Any revenue loss from price caps will be made up for by increased market penetration, Business 101. This was probably a backroom deal. The trick was to fool the American Public into thinking that these big businesses were actually against the plan. (It actually didn't work all that well). The took a page out of the bankers playbook from the turn of last century. Big Pharma/Insurance PRETENDED, to be against the bill and didn't fight either the righteous criticisms of their industries or the misleading rhetoric, knowing that the legislation would be beneficial to them. If the sheeple thought industry was against it, it must be good for the sheeple was the logic.

This was the tactic used by the banking industry, to gain passage of the Federal Reserve Act in 1913. Act like Banking didn't want it. Who didn't want to stick it to JP Morgan and Phillip Rothschild? They must have been laughing all the way to the bank (home). They've been sticking it to us ever since. (for more on this read, "The Creature from Jekyll Island. A Brief History of the Federal Reserve")

Don't get me wrong, there are clearly big problems in the Healthcare system as it is. However, the recently passed legislation solves few and creates many more, and will cost a bundle.

The capitalist system has lifted mankind out of mass poverty. It is this system that in the last century and in the last generation, has progressively changed the face of the world, and has provided the masses of mankind with amenities that even kings did not posses or imagine a few generations ago. - Henry Hazlitt

The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of “liberalism”, they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened..I no longer need to run as a Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party. The Democratic Party has adopted our platform. - Norman Thomas

So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men. - Voltaire, 1764